I see change happening every day in some of the most impacted communities by people working together, and I know that I want to contribute to making all of our neighborhoods safe so that not one single young person dies from violence.

Billie P. Weiss, MPH, is a local hero who has gained national attention through her role as a leader in violence prevention. After raising five children, earning her bachelor's and master's degrees later in life and losing her husband to Alzheimer's Disease, Ms. Weiss has applied her perseverance and immeasurable strength to building safer communities as founder, acting director and a steering committee member of the Violence Prevention Coalition of Greater Los Angeles (VPC).

Thank you, KCET, for this honor. As an immigrant, I am proud to be an American by choice. As a real-life 'Rosie the Riveter' and American soldier, I was able to pay back this country that I love for allowing me to become an American. As a community volunteer, I was able to give back to humanity."

World War II veteran Bea Cohen has spent more than 70 years of her 102-year-old life giving back to the United States and supporting the American military.

She collected black widow spiders and sent them to the University of Southern California so that their strong webs could be used in the crosshairs in the sites of submarine periscopes during the Second World War. She also expressed her patriotism by working at Douglas Aircraft Company and becoming a Rosie the Riveter - one of the thousands of female factory workers who contributed to the war effort by producing munitions and war supplies.